TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Lawyers for a Louisiana company and an environmental group battled Monday at the start of a weeklong legal hearing over oil drilling near the Apalachicola River.
Clearwater Land & Minerals attorney Timothy Riley told a state administrative law judge that the company will show the environmental threat of the drilling site 1.5 miles from the Apalachicola River is minimal under various scenarios, including hurricanes.
“Not only will Clearwater present evidence that the environment will be thoroughly protected, it will also show that modern technology has allowed Clearwater to identify a specific location 12,000 feet below the earth where there is a high likelihood of finding oil and gas in quantities that are commercially viable for extraction,” Riley said in his opening statement.
However, Apalachicola Riverkeeper lawyer Tim Perry told an administrative law judge that the company’s plan to drill an exploratory well in Calhoun County is “unacceptably high.”
